A Week Of Oratory
23 September 2009
On Tuesday I addressed the nation, or at least that part of it that crowded into Mariano Rubinacci’s Mount Street shop for a party staged by Wei Koh of The Rake. I loathe speaking in public, still, for Wei and Mariano…
Anyway it was the usual cult of the personality stuff, a salute to a great Neapolitan and all that. However just to prove that even Rubinacci is fallible I recounted the story of his first visit to London. Even though his father christened the family tailoring firm ‘London House’ he still had not visited the capital of the Empire at the time of his death, leaving Mariano to embark on the pilgrimage. So it was one evening that the young Mariano mounted the steps of a BEA trident with a tightly furled Brigg umbrella and a booking at a well known central London hotel, I called it Claridge’s in the speech as it had a better ring to it.
On the flight over he didn’t understand much of what was being said but he was assured that this Claridge’s was well known and that he would have no trouble getting a taxi to take him there. Anyway he cleared customs and Brigg umbrella aloft he hailed a taxi. “Claridge’s… never ‘eard of it.” He tried another one. “Sorry Guv, dunno what you are talking about.” Every time he stopped a cab and asked to go to Claridge’s he was met with the same incomprehension.
It was only after an hour spent trying to make himself understood by a succession of taxi drivers that a passing policeman took an interest in Mariano’s increasingly desperate attempts to get to Claridge’s. Eventually it was ascertained that the reason he could not get the taxi to take him to Claridge’s was that he had landed in Manchester, because of thick fog the plane couldn’t land in London, but was diverted north and of course he hadn’t understood a word of the announcements.
Still, at least he made it to London in the end, opening up on Mount Street some forty years later.
The following evening I was back up on Mount Street again, this time for the GQ debate at Dunhill at Bourdon House. The motions were history is bunk and snobbery is a vice with my old Oxford contemporary The Hon. Toby Young proposing both of them and Andrew ‘The History Man’ Roberts, opposing.
I was impressed at the work that each had put into their respective pitches, and as I make some of my money from writing history books voting with Andrew was a cinch. Being a crashing snob, I felt a little guilty that I voted against Andrew’s spirited and ingenious defence of snobbery, as a powerful force for good, so in order to salve my conscience I took myself round to Scott’s for a bit of dressed crab and halibut.
Then it was over to Switzerland for more speeches, this time mostly in French, at the birthday of Jean Claude Biver, the boss of Hublot watches. I first met Jean Claude almost 20 years ago when he was boss of Blancpain. Back then he told me how he had met the ghost of Mr Blancpain and had received his instructions direct from the founder…that is one of the things that I like about Jean Claude, he is not about to let a little thing like the barrier of a couple of centuries trouble him.
Talking of ghosts, I felt a frisson of Henry James over the weekend as I stayed at the Trois Couronnes in Vevey, the location of James’s novella Daisy Miller. Apparently it is the second oldest hotel in Helvetia and I can’t stress strongly enough how charming it is, really old style, with just the right amount of updating in terms of a decent spa, pool, ipod docking stations and what have you. Moreover it boasts that silent, half telepathic service that I used to associate with grand old European hotels and which I am pleased to say is still alive and well in Vevey.
I can’t admit to being a huge fan of James’s work, so Daisy Miller has the cardinal virtue absent from much of the rest of his oeuvre: brevity. Talking of which Tristram is constantly complaining about my prolixity so I think I have kept you long enough.
